Every few months it seems like a few money matters start piling up, and this is one of those times. Mostly precipitated by tax season, of course.

1. Tax strategy. I did a rough draft of taxes this weekend, and it looks like AS will be getting about $1900 back while NT and I will owe about $1600. I'm glad it worked out but kind of annoyed that using the suggested married withholdings got us so far in the hole--especially since NT withheld like a single person, which I thought would even us out. So this gives me a number of tasks:
A. Turn in AS's taxes ASAP. We'll wait until we get her refunds before submitting mine and NT's. That way we don't feel the pain of owing the taxes.
B. Figure out our withholdings. AS's refund should go down to about nothing since she won't be paying any tuition this year. I'm not sure if NT's tuition payments in the fall will help us since our combined wages are kind of a lot (I think). That means I need to have more withheld this year to make sure we don't owe too much. But I don't want to go overboard and withhold too much. This will take some reading and calculating to get just right.
C. Figure out how much my resulting smaller paycheck will set back our planned savings for our UK trip, and find the necessary money elsewhere in the budget.
D. File mine and NT's return once we get AS's refunds.

2. Net worth. I'm sure millions of readers breathlessly awaiting my net worth update noticed it didn't come out late last month as usual. This is because I don't have access to NT's 401(k) info until he gets me a PIN so I can log in. I lost the piece of paper that contained the PIN, and he is just not as interested in this stuff as I am, so he's taking forever getting me another. Anyway, it's probably for the best, as it sounds like most people's January net worth took a hit from the stock market. I'm sure our 401(k)s fared no better. Luckily our aggressive debt repayment pushes our net worth upward no matter what. I'll know more when I check in late February--hopefully I'll be able to by then!

3. AS contacts. She will be ordering once we have enough surplus money in play, and will get it reimbursed less than a month later. She already knows what day we'll have enough money; I just need to remember to add to the budget so I'm not surprised when it happens.

4. NT college admission. We need to have this figured out before we take our England vacation, I think. We've been putting off thinking about his applying to college because it seems so complicated: He's a continuing-ed student since he's in his 30s and it's been awhile since high school, but also technically a transfer because he did complete a year in England, though we need to figure out how his UK credits translate into the U.S. education system, and whether he needs any kind of standardized tests. He's a conditional permanent U.S. resident but still a UK citizen, so we need to find out what types of student loans he's eligible for. He's lived in MN for over a year so hopefully in-state tuition applies, but we'll need to verify that as well. Oh, AND he wants to take regular undergrad classes but still work full-time, so we need to figure out whether he can handle a full course load or if he needs to go part-time. Whew...am I forgetting anything? So...yeah, that's going to be a full-time job just figuring out where to start, and making sure we ask all the right questions of all the right people at the university.

OK, now I can't remember if there was more on this list. Good thing I can edit this entry if I remember, because I want to keep all this in one place so I don't forget anything.